The increasing number of drug offenders in prisons around the country is a major reason why our incarcerated population has reached the two million mark. Passed in the 1970’s, New York State’s so-called Rockefeller laws call for a penalty of 15 years for the sale of two ounces of a contr

J. R. R. Tolkien, the Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon who became famous by inventing the Hobbits, once pointed out that the Gospel story begins and ends on a note of joy. It begins with the birth of Jesus under the stars in Bethlehem, a moment of purest joy, and it ends with his resurrection in the

The recent investigation and trial of the theologian Jacques Dupuis, S.J., alerted Catholics and others to the judicial methods of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Am., 3/12, Signs of the Times).

It is understandable that at first glance the idea of a national missile defense system is appealing. It promises perfect safety, rendering obsolete the madness of nuclear deterrence based on mutual assured destruction. If the system were to work, the threat of some enemy from across the ocean pulve

Through Medicaid and other programs, most poor people in the United States have access to the new AIDS drug therapies. But in developing countries, their cost—over $10,000 a year—has made their use all but impossible. As a result, the AIDS pandemic has widened its devastating scope in bo

It was with great joy, President Bush said on Jan. 29, that he was announcing his plan to encourage private charitable agencies, both religious and secular. His basic policy is not new, but his applications of it are. Collaboration has been going on for generations between private social work agenci